| I think you went into stable genius territory yourself in the second half. > I'd guess Ukraine falls within months at most. Even if the US stops all deliveries -- which is far from certain, judging by the noise Trump made in the past week -- Ukraine won't run out of supplies. They'll keep trading territory and even if that accelerates, it will take a long time to reach Kiev (which isn't guaranteed to lead to capitulation anyway, Ukrainians are pretty determined). Meanwhile it looks like Russia is running out of armaments itself and the domestic situation is heating up such that another mobilization is quite risky. > Pooh Bear is laughing too and will probably try to invade Ukraine. This is a laughable suggestion. Sure, if Russia annexes parts of Ukraine, China will gladly send construction and mining crews for a friendly price and a cut of the profits, but they have absolutely no reason to send soldiers to Ukraine. In the first place it is not their conflict. They are only "allied" to Russia until they can fully bring Central Asia under their control and build up the infrastructure to replace Russian hydrocarbons and raw materials.
Sending the PLA also runs the risk of exposing their weakness, which would damage China's position in the region. Much better to keep it as the huge threat it is on paper. > Did I mention that US antipiracy efforts are likely being strongly cut which means world shipping is going to get a lot more dangerous, expensive, and unreliable? Yes, but the PLN is more than ready to take up this role. They have the bases, the ships and have been training like mad. Since freedom of navigation is very important to China (for now), we might see some strange bedfellows there. |